Midnight Tea
by Firewing's Scepter
Summary: The night after battling each other as Chat Noir and Mayura, Adrien and Nathalie share a pleasant cup of tea. Mild spoilers for the episode "Miracular" plus a hearty portion of head canon. :)


Miraculous Ladybug Fanfic – Midnight Tea

Setting: Immediately following the events of Season 3 Episode 11 "Miraculer"

Warning: Slight spoilers for Season 3, but mostly just headcanon.

_Miracular deflected the blow easily. Chat swore that it felt like she was toying with him. He tried to distract her with another blow from his baton as he summoned his cataclysm. If he could just keep her off balance, he could end this…_

_The next thing he knew Miracular had struck him in the chest, and he felt his cataclysm evaporate from his claws. The abrupt loss of power was dizzying. Chat felt light-headed, and Hawkmoth's pawn smiled wickedly at his obvious moment of weakness. _

_Miracular blasted him with his own cataclysm, sending him flying. It more than knocked the wind out of him … Even with superpowers, it felt like he'd cracked all his ribs at once. The pain was staggering, but his Lady needed him… He had to get up. He had to rejoin the fight…_

_But he couldn't. Something was holding him down. A massive weight was pinning him face down in the dirt… "An elephant?" Adrien thought as he turned to look over his shoulder. "ANIMAN!" His mind supplied. "Wait, when did HE join the fight?" There was no time to figure it out as Chat struggled to lift his face from the dirt. Inhaling at the wrong time, he got a nose full and began coughing and gagging._

Adrien's eyes flickered open as he continued to struggle against the Akumas in his nightmare. The attackers might've been imaginary, but the cough was very real. It dragged Adrien from his slumber and back into the real world. Opening his eyes fully and sitting up, it still took a moment to get his bearings.

He was in his room. The familiar surroundings helped him to relax. He laid back down, hoping to get a little more sleep, but another tickle in his throat ended in more coughing.

"Could you keep it down over there?" Plagg asked groggily from his side of the bed. "Some of us are trying to sleep."

"Sorry, Plagg…" Adrien's apology was cut short by more coughing. "My throat is just a little sore." He rasped. "I could really go for some tea or something." Adrien got up and headed to his bathroom to get a cup of water.

"Well, if you're decide to go through all that trouble, you might as well get me some more camembert from downstairs."

"Seriously, Plagg? You finished the entire stash?" Adrien asked as he checked the small cupboard where he kept it hidden in his room. It was empty.

"Yesterday was a big day." Plagg said unrepentant. "I had a lot of recharging to do." He rolled over to go back to sleep, as Adrien bit back a complaint. Instead, he sighed, remembering that his kwami had been through the ringer recently. Not many could survive a direct cataclysm. Fewer still could get their miraculous owner back on their feet AND back into the fight as fast as he had.

"How about this?" Adrien offered gently. "If you come with me downstairs, I'll fix you some warm camembert on sourdough." That got the kwami's attention.

In an instant, Plagg was in the air. "What are you waiting for?" He flew through the door, not waiting for Adrien to open it. Adrien chuckled, triggering a quick cough into his hand as he followed his friend downstairs.

_Elsewhere in the Agreste Mansion_

Nathalie's racking cough left her weak and trembling. Every time she convinced herself it was manageable, it resurged with a vengeance. Like now.

_Well what can you expect when you're dying? _She asked herself dryly. Ok_, that might be a bit dramatic_. She admitted, trying to suppress another wave of coughing. Truth be told, she probably wasn't dying, although it certainly felt like she was. But even if she wasn't dying _**yet**_, she would be soon if she kept using the peacock miraculous. Nooroo had explained to Gabriel that a damaged miraculous siphoned off the life-force of its wearer to heal itself. It'd already come within a heartbeat of killing Emilie Agreste, and now it was slowly doing the same to Nathalie.

_Not so slowly anymore, _she conceded. As unhealthy as it had been for her to use the miraculous from the safety of Hawkmoth's lair, today she'd gone toe-to-toe with Chat Noir and Queen Bee. The exertion had wiped her out. She hadn't even been able to make it home under her own power. She'd de-transformed in an alley and collapsed. Gabriel had finally sent the bodyguard to pick her up.

She'd been sure that he'd be disappointed in her. She'd failed to secure Chloe's loyalty much less the Bee Miraculous. But he hadn't seen it as failure. From his standpoint, they were still making progress.

Knowing that she hadn't let him down lifted a weight off her chest, but as the adrenaline faded, a different weight settled in its place. This one much more _physically _suffocating.

Nathalie scrambled out of bed and fell to her knees. When her head stopped swimming, she made her way to the kitchen in her quarters. Sometime after Mr. Agreste had first hired her, he'd invited her to move into a small apartment on the lower level of the mansion so that she could be on hand whenever he needed her ("invited" is the polite way of saying she could accept or find employment elsewhere). It was a nice place, albeit small, with its own bedroom, bathroom, sitting area, and kitchenette.

Using one hand to brace herself against the counter, she searched her cupboards for teabags. Usually, a hot cup of tea could get her back to sleep, but her reserves were all bare. She considered going to the mansion's main kitchen to look for some, but she felt uncomfortable doing so. It wasn't like she needed permission from Gabriel. He trusted her with everything (well, sort of), but from the time she'd first donned the Peacock Miraculous, she'd always believed it was her responsibility to care for the consequences without his help. She wanted to believe she could manage her own problems without adding the slightest burden on anyone else. And, well… she feared that if Gabriel found out she was struggling… he'd ask her to take a step back.

She didn't want to step back. She wanted to do more. She wanted to prove herself worthy of him. To be at his side when he finally succeeded… _in bringing the love of his life back._

Nathalie slumped. She lost the strength to support herself against the counter and eased herself onto a nearby barstool instead.

There was a gnawing ache in the pit of her stomach. Sometimes she wondered what in the world she was doing. Hawkmoth wouldn't stop until he'd gotten Emilie back, and when she was back, would there be any place for Nathalie in his life?

Nathalie couldn't even imagine going back to her life before Gabriel Agreste. What would it be like working for someone else? No one compared to him. What would it be like, not seeing him every day? Not helping him transform his genius into reality (both as an artist and as a supervillain)?

And what about Adrien? Her heart clenched at the thought of the boy. He was the brightest ray of sunshine on the sunniest of days. His kindness and generosity were unparalleled. Nathalie would never meet another child half as wonderful as him.

Could she survive it? Not seeing either of them again?

Not for the first time, she wondered if it'd be easier to cut ties sooner rather than later. Every day she spent with them she grew more attached. No matter how little she showed it, she knew that somewhere along the way, she'd come to love them both very much.

_Even as they both mourn losing the __**real**__ lady of this house. _Her throat felt tight, and she told herself it was just the cough. Putting her employers out of her mind, she returned to her search for teabags. There were none. If she really wanted tea, she'd have to go to the main kitchen. She debated for another moment. Should she just go back to bed, where'd she'd lay awake coughing as she obsessed over the small family that she'd never really be part of? Or should she just go get some tea and hopefully a little more sleep before her alarm went off?

She swallowed her discomfort, put on a robe, and left her quarters.

* * *

_In the kitchen_

Adrien was watching videos of yesterday's fight on his phone while he waited for the teapot to boil. There wasn't much, neither Nadja nor Alya had been able to get close during the battle. In fact, Alya's Ladyblog hadn't had ANY original footage, just a two-minute video of the enthusiast quickly explaining the events of the fight.

_Poor Alya, _Adrien thought. _She's probably kicking herself. Ladybug, Chat Noir, Carapace, AND Rena Rouge were all in the same place at the same time fighting THE Mayura, and she hadn't been able to get footage of ANY of it. Huh, maybe I should give her a firsthand account as Chat Noir… _But listening to the rest of the video, Adrien realized that Alya had clearly gotten most of the major details from somewhere. Seeing that he wasn't going to learn anything new from Alya's site, he reopened the tab for the news network. There were a few quick clips of Mayura flipping and jumping, but they didn't help Adrien much. It certainly didn't add anything his own memory couldn't provide.

Then, they showed a photograph (clearly taken with a powerful camera), and Adrien paused the video. The shot was of Mayura with the fan in front of her face. Only one eye was clearly visible, but it was enough to make Adrien imagine the villainess with a sinister smile on her face.

"Where did you come from?" He murmured, as though the picture was going to answer him. "And why would you start working with Hawkmoth?"

"Maybe he offers the best Camembert in Paris," Plagg said gobbling up his last bit of cheesy bread and letting out a contented sigh.

Adrien resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "Something tells me a super-villainess like Mayura isn't in it for the food." He scrolled down, looking for more clips or photos or articles. There didn't appear to be anything useful, so he put the phone down for a minute and tried to focus on his own memories of the fight.

She'd been trying to recruit Chloe, but why recruit people when Hawkmoth could akumatize them? _And apparently, he can akumatize as many as he wants now. _Adrien flashed back to the massive battle a few weeks earlier. It taken Ladybug, Chat Noir, Rena Rouge, Carapace, and Queen Bee to take on Hawkmoth's entire army of akuma victims.

_How had he done it?_ "It doesn't make any sense." Adrien said aloud.

Plagg's soft snoring jolted, ending with a snort. "Yes… no… no sense… Which part?"

"I don't understand how he akumatized all those people at once. He's never controlled more than one person at a time before, and then all of a sudden, we're facing the Akuma Apocalypse as he controls half of Paris altogether. How did he do it? Does he have **another** ally working with him besides Mayura? If so, why are they working with him?"

Somewhere in the middle of Adrien's flurry of questions, Plagg seemed to wake up. "Hawkmoth offered to let Chloe keep the Bee Miraculous if she joined he offered Mayura something similar?" The Kwami said.

"If so, where did he (or she or they?) get the Peacock Miraculous in the first place?" Adrien asked.

Plagg didn't have an answer to that one. Well no, he had an answer, but he didn't want to say it unless he had to. Plagg had long had the habit of keeping certain knowledge to himself. If Tikki was here, she _might_ admit the truth. His counterpart was so sickeningly honest that it wouldn't surprise Plagg if Marinette already knew all about the tragic disappearance of both the Peacock and Butterfly Miraculous at the same time all those years ago. (Although thinking it through now, it wasn't so inconceivable to consider that they'd been together this whole time.) But as far as Plagg could tell that wasn't his right to admit, especially since it would invite Adrien to ask some questions that Plagg was forbidden from answering.

Fortunately, any reply Plagg might've given was cut short by the teapot whistling.

* * *

Nathalie had been surprised to see a light on in the kitchen. At first, she'd thought it was the cook getting an extremely early start on the morning, but peeking inside, she instead saw Adrien's back as he stood at the stove.

_What's he doing up at this hour? _She wondered. For a moment, she feared that he might have an entire routine of waking up to fix meals in the middle of the night. His father was very strict on what ANY of his employed models could eat, and Adrien didn't get any special passes just for being Gabriel's son.

Then another racking cough hit, and she pulled herself away from the door, not seeing Plagg pop his head up over Adrien's shoulder.

Inside the kitchen, Adrien told his kwami to hide. Then he went to investigate the muffled noise coming from the hall. To his surprise, he saw Nathalie hobbling back along the hall, leaning heavily on the wall.

"Nathalie?! Are you alright?" She tried to say she was fine, but she couldn't stop coughing long enough to make out the words.

"Here," Adrien said, sliding his arm around her waist and taking her hand in his. He guided her to a nearby sitting room, where she could collapse in a leather chair as she tried to catch her breath. "What can I get you?"

"Nothing." She said with a shake of her head. She wasn't going to have her boss's son serving her. "I should be go…" she started to say, but the end of the sentence was interrupted by more coughing.

"Please, Nathalie, give yourself a moment."

"I'll be fine." She said her voice tight. She wanted to get up and return to her quarters, but her legs weren't stable enough to take her yet.

"Nathalie, let me get you something, please." Adrien said again. It pained him to see her suffering. "I… I just made a pot of water for tea. Can I prepare you a cup?" His striking green eyes begged her to accept, and even though every fiber in her being knew she _should_ refuse, she gave a slight nod, and Adrien ran off to fetch her a cup of tea.

Instead of a simple cup, Adrien brought back an entire tray with an assortment of teas, alongside saucers of milk, creamer, sugar cubes, lemon wedges, and honey. "I… I wasn't sure how you liked yours prepared." He said bashfully. A sad smile came to Nathalie's lips as she realized he was honestly embarrassed that he didn't know how a member of the staff took their tea.

Sometimes, she thought Gabriel had the best son in all Paris… Forget that, in the whole world. Even if Nathalie wasn't dedicated to Gabriel Agreste, she'd probably stick around just to look after Adrien. He was the kind of boy that made a career-driven woman like her want to settle down and have kids… O_r at least this kid,_ she thought as she stirred lemon and honey into her ginger tea. Unwilling to express all that, she murmured a soft 'thank you' as she sipped her soothing drink.

"My pleasure," Adrien said with a bright smile. "I was already up, and I'd already boiled the water." He sipped his own peppermint tea as Nathalie eyed him carefully.

"Why were you up?"

"I had a bit of a sore throat." He admitted, and Nathalie's eyes widened in alarm.

"Are you alright? Are you running a fever? Should I call a doc *_hack, hack, hack*?"_

"A doctor? For me? Nathalie, it looks like you're the one who could use a few days of rest."

"Out of the question."

"Nathalie…"

"Out. Of. The. QUESTION." She repeated with as much severity, as she could muster in her weakened state.

"Nathalie, I hate to see you like this." He said. "I'd hate to see you get worse because you didn't _or couldn't_ take a few days to take care of yourself."

"Adrien, I thank you for your concern, but I will be well soon enough. You need not worry."

Adrien's eyes widened in surprise. "Nathalie, of course, I'm going to worry if it looks like you're coming down with something. You're practically family. I see you even more than I see my own Father You're always looking after me. Can't you let others look after you once in a while?"

Adrien waited for Nathalie to respond, but as the seconds dragged on where she simply stared at him, he finally took a long sip of tea to ignore the awkward silence that'd developed. Maybe he shouldn't have been so honest with her. Perhaps she simply saw him and his father as employers, nothing more, nothing less. If so, calling her 'family' might've made her uncomfortable, but it didn't make it any less true for Adrien. If anything, he'd understated the situation.

Nathalie was family. Adrien couldn't even imagine what life would be like if his Father hadn't hired her. Honestly, he wasn't sure what his Father paid her, but he wanted to believe that a part of her was glad to stay because she actually liked them. It was the only thing that explained how she'd stuck around through Gabriel's abuse, Adrien's antics, and well, everything else that went on in this house. Was it so crazy to think that she'd come to like (or even love) them back?

But if her silence was any indication, she didn't.

Adrien deflated a little. That was his life in a nutshell, wasn't it: He constantly found himself desperate for love from people who just didn't feel the same way about him that he did about them. His Father, Ladybug, and now Nathalie. In each case, Adrien did everything in his power to earn their love, and at the end of the day they still didn't want to spend anymore time with him than was absolutely necessary.

Adrien sighed, as he tried to keep the dark thoughts at bay (No one ever knew when Hawkmoth might be ready to take advantage). Maybe his father wasn't ready to hug him daily (or even monthly) yet. Maybe Ladybug hadn't fallen in love with him yet. And maybe Nathalie didn't see herself as a member of his family, but that wasn't going to stop Adrien from trying.

Whatever it took, he was going to make sure they knew how much they meant to him. They and their love were worth fighting for. Adrien refused to let Hawkmoth or Mayura or the Akuma of the week ever stop him from being there to support the ones he loved most

One day, Adrien and Ladybug would stop Hawkmoth and Mayura for good, and then, Adrien would have the rest of his future with the three people he loved most at his side.

* * *

Silence fell as Adrien's words echoed in her mind. Had this beautiful, sweet, amazing boy, just called _her_ a member if _his family_? For a brief moment, her imagination got away from her as she saw herself married to Gabriel and mothering Adrien. She hadn't been part of a real family in ages, but being a part of this one would be its own dream come true.

But…

_But my dreams aren't what matter. _She thought. _Adrien, you don't deserve a stand-in family. A boy as amazing as you deserves his _REAL_ family back and whole… and that won't come until Hawkmoth brings your mother back. You deserve your real mother, not a placeholder like me._

It was at that moment that Nathalie had a revelation. Up until this point, she'd been dedicated to assisting Gabriel. From the day she'd learned he was Hawkmoth, she'd understood why he was doing what he was doing, and she'd done her best to support him. Somewhere along the way, her loyalty had turned to an unexpected attachment, but that'd led to constant confusion as she tried to figure out why SHE should want to see Emilie Agreste back from the (near) dead.

Now, where there'd once been uncertainty, there was resolve. Whatever it took, whatever it cost, she was going to do everything in her power to bring Emilie back because Adrien Agreste deserved to have his mother back.

If it meant akumatizing a thousand victims, she'd do it.

If it meant Nathalie spent countless nights on the painful verge of death, she'd endure it.

If it meant killing Ladybug and Chat Noir to rip their miraculous from their cold dead bodies, she'd do it _with joy_, all for her dear, sweet precious Adrien Agreste.

**Author's Note: Ok so, from the first time I saw "Miracular," and I saw Adrien/Chat fighting Mayura/Nathalie, I couldn't help but look forward to a scene at home between these two. Sorry, if I bent/stretched the character relationships a little. **


End file.
